


Make Your Way Upstate

by bellagerantalii



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Gen, If You Think Steve Didn't Take Peggy's Name You're Wrong, Rikki Barnes is now Rikki Carter, Steve Rogers Feels, T Because Rikki Swears a Lot, cap family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 07:36:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18633703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellagerantalii/pseuds/bellagerantalii
Summary: In which Rikki Carter, millennial, drives her Grandpa Steve upstate so that he can indulge his flair for the dramatic and sit on a bench.





	Make Your Way Upstate

**Author's Note:**

> Endgame spoilers ahoy!

“This is the most over dramatic thing you’ve ever done, Grandpa, and you’ve done plenty of over dramatic shit,” Rikki says, merging onto the exit ramp off NY-17. She has her iPhone in its mount on the dashboard, and the Maps app prompts her to turn left a split second before her grandpa, with the road map spread out on his lap, does. 

“I owe them closure, and it’s time to pass this on,” her Grandpa says, nudging the round bag at his feet. 

“And it’s going to be Sam?” she asks, driving through a small hamlet, following road signs and her GPS to the state park. Of course Tony Stark managed to find a way to build his swanky hermit lake house on public land. 

“Buck won’t want it,” Grandpa Steve replies, folding up the road map. “He doesn’t need to be a symbol anymore.”

“And Sam does?” 

“He can bear it better,” Grandpa Steve says simply.

For the most part, Rikki trusts her grandpa. He’s as stubborn as an old ass, but he’s usually right about things like this. Still, Rikki’s spent the last few weeks begging him to let her take up the shield, rather than give it to some random man she’s never met.

She knows she’s not being passed over. She knows Grandpa Steve has his reasons.

It still hurts, though.

Rikki nurses her little Ford hatchback onto a dirt road with a security gate. 

“The code’s 6161970,” her Grandpa supplies before she even has to ask.

Rikki dutifully punches in the code, and the gate swings up. 

“There’s a road on the left that goes to the boathouse. If you park there you’ll be able to see me,” Grandpa Steve says. Rikki turns the car down an even narrower dirt path, and soon finds herself at a small boathouse. It’s nothing fancy, probably big enough to hold a few kayaks. She pulls up directly behind it so that her car isn’t visible from the house. Her grandpa gets out of the vehicle, and Rikki does the same.

“It’s beautiful up here,” she says, looking around at the pine trees and the still, placid lake. 

“I wish I had had more time up here,” Steve says, in the voice Rikki’s come to associate with a deep, secret sadness. “If I’d been better to Tony I might have.”

“Time is something you have in spades," she tells her grandfather. "Kind of like pig-headedness and sass.”

“I think I’ve learned to call those _tenacity_ and _assertive_ over the years.”

“Yeah, only at my parent-teacher conferences.”

Her grandpa smiles a familiar sad smile. “Your mom’s, too.”

Rikki smiles back wryly. “Like mother, like daughter.”

“Like grandmother like mother like daughter,” her grandpa says, his own sad smile finding humor as he hugs her.

“Like grand _parents_ , then,” Rikki corrects, squeezing the old man tight. He may be over 100, but he doesn’t look a day over 75. He regularly tells Rikki that he doesn’t _feel_ a day over 60.

“Thank you, for driving me up here,” he says as they pull apart. “I know you don’t agree with my decision, but--”

“If you could give me a good reason _why_ , then I might.”

Grandpa sighs, and ruffles her hair. 

“The shield is a lot of responsibility. You have to be more than what you are. Someone different. It wasn’t supposed to be that way, I was supposed to be the first of hundreds, but--”

“Grandpa, the role is you. _You_ made Captain America. I’ve known you longer than almost any other living person, I know what it takes--”

“Bee, the only thing you’ve ever known me as is your Grandpa, the man who put the shield in the back of the closet and walked away from it,” he says, shaking his head. “You don’t understand the--”

“I know what the role symbolizes and what it requires. You’re the one always telling me to give back and protect people, and I’m a goddamn super soldier. No, let me finish,” she snaps as her grandpa tries to interrupt. “You and I have the same wonky genetic enhancements. How is passing the mantle to some regular guy, a good, honorable guy, yes, but a regular old human who won’t always be able to get back up when he gets knocked down, going to best to protect people who need it? I’m just as capable, if not more so.”

Her grandpa doesn’t respond right away, but Rikki sees his jaw, which had been clenched tightly, loosen. 

“Do you think that I don’t think you’re worthy of it?” he asks, quietly.

Goddamnit, now Rikki’s made her grandpa sad. 

“Yes,” she says. 

“Rikki, I know you would make an incredible Captain America,” grandpa begins, hoisting the shield bag off the ground. “In fact, you would probably be better than me. You’ve always used your strength to help other people, even before you knew you were… genetically enhanced, like me.

“Bee,” he says after a pause, using the nickname for her only he ever uses, “I never wanted you to feel obligated to take up this mantle. As soon as you do, people will start imposing expectations on you. Expectations you will come to dread, if only because you’ll put so much pressure on yourself to meet them. Even worse, you’ll start imposing expectations on yourself you have no way of meeting. Believe me, Bee, this is something I know from experience.

“Sam knows himself. Sam knows what the job entails because he’s seen it firsthand. Sam has the wisdom to keep who he is separate from the role he’s going to play. You’re still figuring all that out, and I don’t want to rush you by foisting this on you. I want to give you a luxury I didn’t have.

Despite the wrinkles on his face, Rikki’s grandpa looks ten years younger when he gets this strident and righteous. 

“I don’t doubt for a minute that you will be Captain America one day,” he continues. When he notices that Rikki’s eyes are welling with tears, he pulls her into another tight hug. “But when you do decide to take that mantle, I want you to be as prepared, and as sure, as you possibly can.”

Rikki sniffs, trying to will the tears back into her eyes. Her grandpa opens his mouth to speak again, but she interrupts him.

“Don’t you dare say you’re proud of me. I can’t handle that right now.”

 

A couple of minutes later, after her eyes feel a little less swollen, Grandpa walks around the edge of the lake towards the house. Rikki can see the time-travel pad (it looks like something out of the _Star Trek_ reboots), the Hulk, her younger grandpa, and the two men who must be Bucky and Sam. They fiddle with the alignment of the panels and Young Grandpa’s suit before he steps onto the pad, and then he’s gone in a soft flash of light. She can’t help but chuckle at the Hulk’s panicked face when grandpa fails to rematerialize. 

She starts her car as quietly as possible, and drives slowly back up the dirt road, trying not to make a sound. She rolls her windows down when she reaches the place where the boathouse lane reaches the front drive. She may tease her grandpa about his flair for the dramatic, but goddamnit if she’s not going to make her own perfect entrance. 

Rikki pulls up to the outdoor lab just as Sam asks “How the hell did you get up here?”

“I drove him!” she calls, climbing out of her car and slamming the door behind her. 

She knows she looks great in her leather jacket, skinny jeans, and dark sunglasses, and the looks on the three younger men’s faces are memories Rikki will treasure forever. The Hulk looks confused, his mouth hanging open in astonishment. Bucky (who looks like he does in the stories her grandpa only just started to tell seven years ago) looks unfazed at first, but quickly looks at her with recognition.

Rikki’s been told constantly that she’s a spitting image of her grandmother. Except for the eyes. She has her grandpa’s eyes. 

Sam does a double take, trying and failing to find any sort of similarity between Rikki and Grandpa’s faces from a distance.

“Steve, please don’t tell me that’s your mystery wife.”

Rikki and her grandpa laugh.

“No need to tell us who your grandma is,” Bucky says, walking forward and holding his hand out for her to shake. Rikki takes it and smiles.

“I’m James Buchanan Barnes,” he says, smiling back at her. “You can call me Bucky.”

“Rebecca Buchanan Carter,” she replies. “You can call me Rikki.”

**Author's Note:**

> The Russo brothers have been planning this since Winter Soldier and I am screaming.
> 
> Anyway, this fic is a way to make sure Rikki Barnes gets into the MCU.


End file.
